Tuesday, December 31, 2013

WNU Editor: Another year .... another 10,000 posts .... 1,000,000 visitors .... 2,000,000+ page views .... reaching an worldwide audience that (and this is what always amazes little me) includes Generals, diplomats, soldiers, intelligence officials, foreign governments and their military organizations, students, teachers, well known cartoonists, actors and actresses, journalists and bloggers, the average Joe and Jane, and (according to sitemeter IP address reader) a regular and daily visitor from someone in the White House .... yup .... it's been an interesting year. But first things first .... I want to wish a Happy New Year to all of my readers .... supporters and critics .... whose feedback I always look forward to and crave. I know that 2014 will be just as exciting and interesting as 2013, and I look forward to even more of your comments and feedback. In the next few weeks I am going to FINALLY update my blogroll on the left side of this blog as well as starting and maintaining a Facebook page. There will also be a few other changes, and I will provide more info when it happens. So again ... a Happy New Year to all of you .... and thank you again for your interest in this humble little blog.

Regular blogging will return tomorrow morning when I wake up .... hangover and all. :)

Satellite images, released by Google, show how Iran's heavy water reactor and heavy water plant at Arak has changed over the past year. New buildings are highlighted on the right-hand panel. The IR-40 reactor was inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in October 2011. The agency said in its recent report that, "construction of the facility was ongoing and the coolant heat exchangers had been installed". BBC

Iran’s Vexing Plutonium Reactor -- S. Fred Singer, Washington Times

A successful Israeli strike against it would ‘shuffle the deck’

Iran has been constructing a “heavy-water” nuclear reactor near Arak, capable of producing weapons-grade Plutonium-239 — sufficient for about one bomb per year. This program is in addition to the ongoing production of fissionable Uranium-235 by isotope enrichment with centrifuges.

The Geneva Interim Agreement, announced in November, would stop Iran’s reactor construction — at least according to the White House press release. Iran does not share this interpretation. Negotiations are continuing in Vienna to try to settle this dispute.

Meanwhile, Israel, not bound by the Geneva Agreement, may decide to bomb the Arak reactor and eliminate one sure route for Iran to gain a nuclear weapon. In 1981, Israel bombed Osiris, a similar reactor, under construction in Iraq. In Sept 2007, in Operation “Mivtza Bustan” (“Orchard”), Israel destroyed a plutonium reactor being built by Syria — with North Korean assistance and financed by Iran — at al-Kibar, Syria. (Ironically, the term “bustan,” identical in both Arabic and Hebrew, is not of Semitic origin, but a loan word from classical Persian.)

(CNN) -- The Obama administration has framed its defense of the controversial bulk collection of all American phone records as necessary to prevent a future 9/11.

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing on June 18, NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander said, "Let me start by saying that I would much rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11."

This closely mirrors talking points by the National Security Agency about how to defend the program.

In the talking points, NSA officials are encouraged to use "sound bites that resonate," specifically, "I much prefer to be here today explain these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent."

On Friday in New York, Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that NSA's bulk collection of American telephone records is lawful. He cited Alexander's testimony and quoted him saying, "We couldn't connect the dots because we didn't have the dots."

My Comment: Some have speculated that the Pentagon's Able Danger program was successful in identifying some of the 9/11 conspirators. But the bottom line is still the same .... we will never know. As to future terror plots .... let can hope that luck will be on our side.

Hamid Karzai at an Afghan National Military Academy ceremony in March 2010. NATO photo

Seven Autocrats Backed by U.S. Military Aid -- Robert Beckhusen & War is Boring staff

With friends like these …

Autocrats. Potentates. Plutocrats. It’s no exaggeration to say the U.S. has a lot of less-than-democratic friends around the world.

Some of them came to power by killing their rivals. Others came to power through elections only to fix the next vote—or employed autocratic means to consolidate control under the veneer of democratic legitimacy. Then there are the autocrats who rose to power within undemocratic systems while being supported by Washington.

Granted, the U.S. has fewer dictatorial allies today than during the height of the Cold War, when much of the Third World lived under despots backed by either Washington or Moscow. But more than zero is still too many. From south of the border to Africa and the Middle East, here are seven.

How To Prevent A War Between China And Japan -- Kishore Mahbubani, Bloomberg

China and Japan, Asia’s two most powerful nations, are increasingly jousting in the skies and in the seas near a set of disputed islands. Although their economies remain deeply intertwined, relations between the two governments seem locked in an irreversible, dangerous downward spiral.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe further embittered feelings last week by visiting the controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honors the souls of Japan’s war dead, including 14 World War II leaders convicted as Class-A war criminals.

Needless to say, neither side seems terribly interested in a rapprochement. That’s a shame, because the deterioration in ties is fairly recent, stemming from a single incident involving the islands administered by Japan, which calls them the Senkakus, and claimed by China, which refers to them as the Diaoyu. A single, symbolic-but-generous gesture could well halt the slide.

My Comment: There is more to the China-Japan dispute than just a few islands and some resources in the ocean. These two countries have been bitter rivals for over a century, and with this bad history it is going to take a long time before this "rivalry" has been dissipated.

After a tense 2013, don’t expect the Asia-Pacific to be any less fraught next year.

Without question, 2013 was a jam-packed year for national security, defense and foreign policy watchers in the Asia-Pacific. What will 2014 bring? Look for next year’s major flashpoints to include mostly familiar themes from the last few years – and almost all include China, one way or another. Below are my top four flashpoints to watch out for in 2014, in ascending order. Think I missed something? Please place your comments below!

Bernard Thornton sits in his car on his second-to-last day inside the agency Ford Expedition that he drives for the CIA. Courtesy of CIA

Mr. Thornton Ends Career As A CIA Driver With Stories To Tell -- Washington Post

The way Mr. Thornton tells the story, it was shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, and he suddenly needed to drive the CIA’s No. 3 official to a secret location three hours away in Virginia. His boss, A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard, was running late, so Mr. Thornton — a fedora-wearing septuagenarian who everyone, even agency directors, called by that honorific — would need to use his lead foot.

“It was at one of these undercover places, and we were doing 80 miles per hour. One time, I hit 100. But I got Buzzy there 15 minutes before the meeting,” said Mr. Thornton, 79, who insists that he cannot remember much else about the drive and why the meeting was so urgent. “All I knew about it was that it was a secret place,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”

A military police officer gestures while stopping a vehicle at a checkpoint in the neighbourhood of Flor del Campo in Tegucigalpa October 14, 2013. Jorge Cabrera / REUTERS

The 50 Most Violent Cities In The World -- Business Insider

Drug trafficking, gang wars, political instability, corruption, and poverty have combined to make Latin America by far the most homicidal region of the world.

Despite having around 9% of the world's population, the region is home to 28% of the world's murders, according to the United Nations. (Note: This article previously cited data from a few years ago showing that 42% of global homicides were in the region.

The highest murder rate of all is in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with 169 homicides per 100,000 people, according to a study published earlier this year by Mexico's Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice. The ranking is based on 2012 data, except for San Pedro Sula and Distrito Central in Honduras, where authorities would not cooperate and 2011 data was used.

The study does not count deaths in a war zone or cities where data was not available.

Forty-one of the top 50 dangerous cities are located in Latin America. U.S. cities also made the list, lead by New Orleans at 17th, along with Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Oakland.

For years, the world has watched as China has moved toward developing a new, long-range stealth bomber. It received the first of them -- the Hongzha-6K -- last year, alarming analysts who suggested in a November report to Congress that it could potentially be used to carry nuclear weapons.

Photographs circulating online this week raise the prospect that the twin-engine Hongzha-6K may not be the only plane the Chinese are preparing to field. Grainy images show a B-2-like bomber taxiing down a runway on what it is purportedly Chinese soil. They were posted on the Chinese website Tiexue with speculation that it's yet another new advanced stealth bomber for the Beijing's rapidly-advancing military.

THE race to put man on the Moon wasn't enough of a battle for the global super powers during the Cold War.

At the time, the Soviet Union and the United States were in an arms race of a bizarre, unconventional kind - that has been exposed in a new report.

The Soviets poured at least $1 billion into developing mind-controlling weaponry to compete with similar programs undertaken in the US.

While much still remains classified, we can now confirm the Soviets used methods to manipulate test subjects' brains.

The paper, by Serge Kernbach, at the Research Centre of Advanced Robotics and Environmental Science in Stuttgart, Germany, details the Soviet Union's extensive experiments, called "psychotronics". The paper is based on Russian technical journals and recently declassified documents outlining practices from 1917 to 2003.

Hundreds Of Soldiers Turn Out To Honour Mikhail Kalashnikov As The Creator Of The World's Most Lethal Weapon Is Laid To Rest In A New Cemetery For National Heroes -- Daily Mail

* Former Russian peasant designed the AK-47 after the Second World War
* Popular with militants, the gun is still made in his home city of Izhevsk
* Its low price and wide production made it synonymous with mass killing
* Inventor insisted he created it to 'defend the fatherland' of Soviet Union
* He never wanted to design guns and would rather have built a lawnmower
* There is one Kalashnikov for every 70 people in the world

Hundreds of soldiers attended the funeral of Mikhail Kalashnikov today to pay their final respects to the designer of the assault rifle that has killed more people than any other firearm in the world.

Kalashnikov, who created the AK-47 more than 60 years ago, died in hospital on Monday at the age of 94.

He was today buried with full state honours at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery (FVMK) - a newly opened cemetery for national heroes - in Mytishchi outside Moscow, the defence ministry said.

The U.S. Navy announced its top five most-played videos in 2013, and among them are the successful catapult and landing of the X-47B from the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush.

While the catapult grabbed third place with 1.25 million views, the unmanned warplane's first successful landing garnered second place with 2.86 million views, according to the Navy.

The Navy video that got the top spot with 5.22 million views was the operational test of the Laser Weapon System when it was temporarily installed aboard the guided missile destroyer Dewey in San Diego.

The Next 25 Years In Military Drone Technology, In 1 Chart -- Washington Post

With so much attention being devoted to commercial drones these days, it's easy to forget that the military's long-term strategy for unmanned systems is still a work in progress. A lot of the funding for drone operations comes from the special budget for the war in Afghanistan — and as the drawdown begins, that money is going to dry up.

That's a big problem for the military. It now has to transform what was originally a stopgap solution into a sustainable function of the armed services. That process is also going to grant drones a more important place in combat, according to the latest revision to a 25-year roadmap the Pentagon released this week. Depending on the kind of drone we're talking about — unmanned aerial systems (UAS), unmanned ground systems (UGS) or unmanned maritime systems (UMS) — the Pentagon foresees an array of different problems that all need to be tackled over the next quarter century.

A small drone helicopter operated by a paparazzi records singer Beyonce Knowles-Carter (not seen) as she rides the Cyclone rollercoaster while filming a music video on Coney Island in New York August 29, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri

U.S. Cracks Open Skies To Testing, Use Of Aerial Drones -- Reuters

(Reuters) - The U.S. aviation regulator took a step toward opening the skies to aerial drones on Monday, authorizing six sites where unmanned aircraft can be tested for a variety of uses.

The Federal Aviation Administration already has approved limited use of drones in the U.S. for law enforcement, surveillance, atmospheric research and other applications.

But Monday's move will give companies, universities and other entities locations at which to test much broader use, such as crop spraying, catching exotic-animal poachers or delivering packages.

"It provides the platform for this research to be carried out on a very large scale across the country," Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Michael Huerta told reporters.

The first test site is expected to be open in six months and the sites will operate at least until February 2017.

The world will face countless challenges in 2014, but a few nations in flux stand out in the crowd. NBC News correspondents and writers explain how the outcome of wars, negotiations and elections in these countries could have a deep impact on their own populations and regions, and sometimes the world.

AFGHANISTAN

With the Taliban resurgent as most American and other foreign troops get ready to leave in 2014, desperately poor Afghanistan is a country riddled with fear and uncertainty.

"The mood is not good," said Wadeer Safi, who has been a professor of political science at Kabul University for 25 years. "Without Western support there will be chaos ... there is even potential for civil war."

Many believe that key to the country’s future is a U.S.-Afghan security agreement that would allow some American troops to remain in the country beyond 2014 and open the door to billions of dollars in foreign aid.

President Hamid Karzai has not signed the pact despite the unanimous endorsement of it at a recent meeting of tribal elders and other dignitaries.

A pair of suicide bombings that left 31 dead in Russia could be a chilling tune-up for the Olympic Games, where a Muslim terrorist leader has vowed to put Chechnya’s long-standing grievance with Moscow in the international spotlight, according to terrorism experts.

Although no one has claimed responsibility for the twin bombings, which occurred less than 24 hours apart in the city of Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, terror experts strongly suspect they were inspired, if not ordered, by Chechen Muslim rebel leader Doku Umarov. Umarov, who calls himself the emir of the terror group the Caucasus Emirate, has called on Muslims to attack civilians and to prevent the Olympics from occurring.

The games, scheduled to begin in six weeks in Sochi, the Black Sea resort about 400 miles southwest of Volgograd, are "Satanic dancing on the bones of our ancestors," Umarov said in a video released online in July.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Assembling B-25 bombers at North American Aviation, Kansas City, Kansas. October 1942. Wikipedia

Interesting ........................

During the 3-1/2 years of World War 2 that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and ended with the Surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, America produced:

22 aircraft carriers

8 battleships

48 cruisers

349 destroyers

420 destroyer escorts

203 submarines

34 million tons of merchant ships

100,000 fighter aircraft

98,000 bombers

24,000 transport aircraft

58,000 training aircraft

93,000 tanks

257,000 artillery pieces

105,000 mortars

3,000,000 machine guns AND

2,500,000 military trucks

We put 16.1 million men in uniform in the various armed services, invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy , won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb and ultimately conquered Japan and Germany .

It should be noted that during a similar amount of time the current Federal bureaucracy couldn't build a functioning web site.
WNU Editor: Hat Tip to Theo Spark

Barrel bombs are the new normal. These crude weapons are filled with TNT and dropped from Syrian government aircraft. On December 28th, they obliterated part of a market in Aleppo and killed at least 25 people, including children.

Their crudeness is useful—a more sophisticated weapon might blur the disastrous disconnect between Obama’s post-power fantasy of a foreign policy and the realpolitik knife-fight reality of the Syrian war. Already, this conflict has killed roughly as many people as did the Bosnian genocide, and there’s no relief in sight. Once Assad wins the war, the killing will only continue.

Gunmen takeover a police vehicle in Ramadi on Dec. 30, 2013, as fighting broke out when Iraqi police moved to dismantle a Sunni Muslim protest camp in the western Anbar province on Monday, leaving at least 13 people dead, police and medical sources said. (ALI AL-MASHHADANI/Reuters)

RAMADI, Iraq: Fighting erupted when Iraqi police broke up a Sunni Muslim protest camp in the western Anbar province on Monday, leaving at least 13 people dead, police and medical sources said.

The camp has been an irritant to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim-led government since Sunni protesters set it up a year ago to demonstrate against what they see as marginalisation of their sect.

The operation triggered an immediate political backlash as dozens of Sunni lawmakers offered their resignations.

Receipts: This receipt for groceries, which includes prices paid for tomatoes, onions, charcoal, meat and a lightbulb, was retrieved from a building occupied by al-Qaida's North African branch in Timbuktu, Mali

The Thrifty Terrorists: Receipts Reveal How al-Qaida Records Every Expense Down To 60 Cents For Cake And A $1.60 Pot Of Mustard -- Daily Mail/AP

* The extremists left more than 100 receipts in a building occupied by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Timbuktu earlier this year
* They assiduously tracked their cash flow, recording purchases as small as a single light bulb
* The often tiny amounts are carefully written out in pencil and colored pen on scraps of paper and Post-it notes

Al-Qaida is obsessed with documenting the most minute expenses, collecting receipts for every purchase from a 60 cent piece of cake to a $1.60 pot of mustard.

In more than 100 receipts left in a building occupied by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Timbuktu earlier this year, the extremists assiduously tracked their cash flow, recording purchases as small as a single light bulb.

The often tiny amounts are carefully written out in pencil and colored pen on scraps of paper and Post-it notes: The equivalent of $1.80 for a bar of soap; $8 for a packet of macaroni; $14 for a tube of super glue.

The accounting system on display in the documents found by The Associated Press is a mirror image of what researchers have discovered in other parts of the world where al-Qaida operates, including Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2nd L) is led by a Shinto priest as he visits Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo December 26, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Toru Hanai

Chinese Refuse To Meet Japan’s Premier After His War Shrine Visit -- New York Times

BEIJING — China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that Chinese leaders, angered over a visit last week by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan to a contentious war shrine in Tokyo, would not meet with Mr. Abe.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said at a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing that Mr. Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the remains of some convicted war criminals from the World War II era, was tantamount to honoring “fascists” and “the Nazis of Asia.” Mr. Qin’s statements were the strongest public remarks made by China against Mr. Abe.

Mr. Abe has been asking for high-level talks with China to discuss points of tension in East Asia. In recent years, the China-Japan relationship has worsened because of disputes over territory in the East China Sea. Most recently, Japan and other countries expressed surprise and anger over China’s efforts to expand its flight identification zone in the region.

Police in China's restive far western region of Xinjiang say eight attackers were shot dead during in assault on a police station, raising the death toll from violent clashes in the province to at least 35 since November.

Authorities also said one of the nine attackers was captured in Monday's pre-dawn attack. There was no mention of any police casualties.

“At around 6:30 am, nine thugs carrying knives attacked a police station in Kashgar's Yarkand county, throwing explosive devices and setting police cars on fire,” the regional government said in a statement.

(Reuters) - Heavy weapons fire rang out in the north of Central African Republic's capital Bangui early on Monday in what the government said were clashes with Christian militias.

French and African troops have struggled to contain violence between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias that has already killed 1,000 people this month and displaced hundreds of thousands.

"There was heavy weapons fire north of Bangui for a few hours and several neighborhoods were affected," Amy Martin, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Bangui told Reuters.

A Reuters witness in the capital reported shell explosions and mortar fire, adding that it had stopped by late morning.

OSCOW—A suicide bomber struck in the southwest Russian city of Volgograd on Monday morning, killing at least 14 people aboard a crowded trolley bus in the city's second terrorist attack in less than 24 hours, stoking security fears in the country ahead of the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered security to be tightened around the country following the second attack, which comes less than six weeks before the games are set to start in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, raising questions whether the violence could threaten to tarnish an event on which Mr. Putin has staked his personal pride and spent $50 billion to stage.

U.S. Cold War Rivals China, Russia Step Up Challenges To Obama’s Asia Pivot -- Washington Times

Russia bullies Ukraine and pushes its claims to the North Pole, while Beijing beefs up naval patrols in the South China Sea and challenges U.S. allies on its borders. As the Obama administration attempts an ambitious reorientation of the nation’s strategic and diplomatic focus, two regional powerhouses and former Cold War adversaries are showing themselves increasingly keen to challenge Washington’s dominance on the world stage.

Foreign policy analysts say recent moves by Moscow and Beijing have been far-reaching, heavy with symbolism and clear tests of President Obama’s intentions and resolve.

SEARCH OPERATION - U.S. Army Spc. Austin M. Weyerman and fellow soldiers move into a village with a suspected weapons cache during Operation Southern Fist III in the Spin Boldak district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, March 3, 2013. The U.S. soldiers, assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, enabled Afghan border police and soldiers to search for weapons caches and eliminate infiltration routes. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Shane Hamann

(Reuters) - Afghanistan on Monday rejected as baseless a U.S. intelligence forecast that the gains the United States and allies have made in the past three years will be significantly rolled back by 2017.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate also predicted that Afghanistan would fall into chaos if Washington and Kabul failed to sign a pact to keep an international military contingent there beyond 2014.

President Hamid Karzai's spokesman dismissed the U.S. forecast, reported by the Washington Post on the weekend, and suggested there was an ulterior motive for it.

"We strongly reject that as baseless as they have in the past been proved inaccurate," Faizi told Reuters.

Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say government troops have beaten back armed attacks at three locations around the capital, killing close to 40 attackers and capturing several more.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende says scores of gunmen attacked the international airport, state television station and army headquarters in Kinshasa. He says several attackers were killed at each of the three locations.

Mende describes the attackers as "terrorists" but says they have not yet been identified. He says the attacks appeared to have no purpose except to disrupt this week's New Year's celebrations.

SNOW TREK - U.S. soldiers and Afghan border police hike from their landing zone to Observation Point 12 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Jan. 21, 2013. The soldiers are assigned to the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. Jon Heinrich

CNN Poll: Afghanistan War Arguably Most Unpopular In U.S. History -- CNN

Washington (CNN) – Support for the war in Afghanistan has dipped below 20%, according to a new national poll, making the country's longest military conflict arguably its most unpopular one as well.

The CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that a majority of Americans would like to see U.S. troops pull out of Afghanistan before the December 2014 deadline.

Just 17% of those questioned say they support the 12-year-long war, down from 52% in December 2008. Opposition to the conflict now stands at 82%, up from 46% five years ago.

"Those numbers show the war in Afghanistan with far less support than other conflicts," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Opposition to the Iraq war never got higher than 69% in CNN polling while U.S. troops were in that country, and while the Vietnam War was in progress, no more than six in 10 ever told Gallup's interviewers that war was a mistake."

Second Suicide Bomb In 24 Hours Causes Carnage In Volgograd As Bus Explosion Kills 14 People Six Weeks Ahead Of The Olympics -- Reuters

* 22 others injured, including one-year-old baby in Russian city of Volgograd
* Officials believe suicide bomber was behind the terrorist attack
* Deadly blast comes a day after an attack killed at least 17 people in the main railway station

Russia faces a New Year security nightmare after the second devastating suicide bomb explosion within 24 hours, this time on a rush hour trolley bus in Volgograd.

The latest blast killed at least 14 with 28 wounded, some severely.

A day earlier, an explosion reported as being detonated by a female "black widow" suicide bomber saw 17 killed and dozens wounded in the city's main railway station.

Formal President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair shake hands after their press conference in the East Room of the White House on Friday November 12, 2004. White House photo by Paul Morse.

Blair-Bush Talks On Iraq War To Be Revealed In U-Turn: 100 Secret Documents To Be De-Classified And Published -- Daily Mail

* The Mail has learned civil servants are ‘close’ to a deal to allow publication
* Documents will include telephone records and private notes

More than 100 secret documents detailing the private discussions between Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George W Bush before the Iraq war are set to be declassified and published.

The Mail has learned senior civil servants are ‘close’ to a deal to let the Chilcot Inquiry into the war publish the documents after more than a year of wrangling.

Records of telephone conversations between Mr Blair and Mr Bush, notes between the two men and even papers documenting Cabinet discussions on the war are expected to be released to the public.

About Me

I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.